Blades become bad guys in Red Deer to stay alive

Rebels’ Lind released from hospital after taking cheap head hit

Brandon Lisowsky celebrates his winning goal for the Blades.

RED DEER, Alta. - The Saskatoon Blades had to dawn the black cowboy hats in the eyes of the Red Deer Rebels fans in order to stay alive in the WHL Playoffs.

On Wednesday, the Blades went into Game 4 facing elimination in their WHL Eastern Conference semifinal series against the host Red Deer Rebels. The visitors fell behind 2-0 before rallying for a 4-2 victory.

With the win, the Blades cut the Rebels lead in the best-of-seven series to 3-1. They will get to host a Game 5 on Friday at 7 p.m. back at the SaskTel Centre.

Normally, this would be a contest that would be remembered for a heroic comeback script. Instead the contest will be remembered for an early incident that cast a pall over the night’s proceedings for the 4,702 spectators in attendance at the Peavey Mart Centrium.

Justin Lies is public enemy #1 in Red Deer.

With the game still scoreless at the 3:24 mark of the opening frame, Rebels left-winger Kalan Lind, who is pegged as big prospect for the coming NHL Entry Draft, was skating through centre ice and knocked a puck that came off the glass down to his stick.

As Lind started to continue up ice, he was felled by a vicious blindside elbow to the head from Blades 19-year-old right-winger Justin Lies. The impact of the hit set Lind’s helmet flying though the air. Immediately, Rebels star centre Kai Uchacz came out to challenge Lies, but the officials jumped in quickly to ensure nothing else escalated.

Lind was laid out on the ice for seven minutes being attended to by the medical staffs of both clubs. He was stretchered off to an ambulance and taken to Red Deer Regional Hospital. At night’s end after Wednesday’s game was complete, the Rebels announced that Lind had been released from hospital.

Rebels C Kai Uchacz (#19) challenges Blades RW Justin Lies.

Lies received a major penalty for checking to the head and a game misconduct. His hit will be automatically be reviewed by the WHL office for a possible suspension.

At first, it appeared the Rebels were going to rally around their fallen teammate. Uchacz, who hadn’t record any points for the first three games of the series, looked like he was going to play the role of hero for the host side.

On the ensuring five-minute power play after Lind went down, Uchacz, who was the Rebels leading scorer in the regular season, gave the Rebels a 1-0 lead scoring with the man advantage at the 6:27 mark of the frame. The De Winton, Alta., product popped home a loose puck during a net scramble around the Saskatoon goal.

Kai Uchacz scored twice in the first to put the Rebels up 2-0.

At the 13:05 mark of the opening frame, Uchacz got his second of the night to put the Rebels up 2-0. Uchacz won a race for a loose puck in the left faceoff circle in the Saskatoon zone and snapped a shot past Blades netminder Ethan Chadwick to give the hosts a two-goal edge.

When the first period came to a close, the Rebels looked like they were going to live up to their romantic image of honour that has been a part of the team since Brent Sutter bought the franchise before the start of the 1999-2000 campaign. The romantic image sees the Rebels as gritty, skilled hardworking, well mannered and well dressed team that never quits, and if one of their players goes down to a cheap hit, they never lose that game.

In the second, it appeared they were going to have ample opportunity to bury the Blades.

Kai Uchacz celebrates his second goal for the Rebels.

At the 6:14 mark of the frame, Blades star left-winger Brandon Lisowsky clipped Uchacz with a high stick that drew blood. Lisowsky received a double minor for high-sticking which will be automatically reviewed by the WHL office for a possible suspension.

Despite having the four minute power play, the Rebels weren’t able to add to their lead. After that kill, it seemed the momentum of the contest was starting to turn.

At the 12:09 of the second, the Blades got further traction when captain Aidan De La Gorgendiere fired home a power-play goal from the point through a screen to cut the Red Deer lead to 2-1. While the Rebels had a 15-9 edge in shots on goal in the second, it felt like the Blades had the better period.

Jace Isley brings the puck up ice for the Rebels.

The Blades proceeded to stun the Rebels faithful scoring on their first two shots of the third to take a 3-2 lead. At the 4:12 mark of the third, Blades hard-working centre Jayden Wiens fired a shot through a screen from the point on his squad’s first shot of the frame to even the score at 2-2.

Just 43 seconds later, the Blades were able to get the jump on the Rebels by finally getting a stretch pass to work. From deep in his own zone, Blades 18-year-old defenceman Ben Saunderson sprung Lisowsky on a breakaway connecting with him on a stretch pass at the Red Deer blue-line.

Lisowsky snapped a shot to the top left corner of the Red Deer goal to give the Blades a 3-2 lead.

Ethan Chadwick made 34 saves to allow the Blades to rally.

The Blades surge wasn’t done there. At the 8:15 mark of the third, offensive defenceman Tanner Molendyk took a pass from De La Gorgendiere, skated into the left shot and snapped a shot passed Rebels netminder Kyle Kelsey to give the visitors a 4-2 advantage.

At that point, Chadwick slammed the door on the Rebels. With 5:16 remaining in the third, Chadwick made a key stop on a close in backhand shot on Rebels 19-year-old left-winger Jace Isley.

That was the Rebels second shot on goal in the frame. They would pepper the Saskatoon net with 10 more shots before the third came to an end, which included the Rebels having pulled Kelsey for an extra attacker for most of the final 2:39 of the stanza.

The Blades celebrate an Aidan De La Gorgendiere traction goal.

Despite the shot volume, the Rebels weren’t able to beat Chadwick. One of his best saves was a glove stop on Rebels right-winger Jhett Larson.

Chadwich ultimately made 34 stops to pick up the win in goal for the Blades in his first start of the series. Kelsey turned away 20 shots to take the setback in net for the Rebels.

It was expected that this would be a tight series going in. The Blades finished fourth in the overall WHL regular season standings with a 48-15-4-1 record and were rated 10^th in the final CHL Top 10 Rankings. The Rebels finished fifth in the overall WHL standings and topped the Central Division with a 43-19-3-3 mark.

Jayden Wiens (#9) scored the equalizer for the Blades.

Frustration did show from the Rebels at times with some scrum action once the Blades had taken a two-goal lead. At one point before the Rebels pulled Kelsey, it looked like Red Deer captain Jayden Grubbe was going to nail Wiens with a hard hit, but it seemed the Rebels skilled centre thought better of it creating a near miss situation at the last moment.

When the contest ended, the Rebels fans excited the Peavey Mart Centrium with the sober tonne of seeing the bad guy wrestler win a title belt in a WWE live event.

Still both teams showed great composure for the rest of the game. Had something like the Lies hit on Lind happened 20 years ago in WHL, the contest would have likely been a fight filled one the rest of the way. Instead, both teams moved on and got focused on the task at hand.

Tanner Molendyk scored a key insurance goal for the Blades.

The Blades acquired Lies in a trade with the Vancouver Giants before the current season began back on August 31, 2022. With the Blades, Lies has been the model teammate and a gritty hard working player that plays tough but within the rules.

In 56 regular season games with the Blades, Lies posted career highs in goals (nine), assists (14), points (23) and the plus-minus department (plus-six). In his previous three seasons with the Giants, Lies was suspended twice for a total of six games, and that could play a part in the WHL’s disciplinary ruling for his hit on Lind.

There could potentially ill will between the two clubs as the series carries on. Still, both teams moved on to focusing on the game at hand on Wednesday when play resumed after Lind’s hit.

Blades D Blake Gustafson (#3) skates the puck out of trouble.

In the current era of the game of hockey, usually nothing lingers on and things blow over pretty quick. Plus, the likelihood is high one of the WHL top executives will be on hand in Saskatoon for Game 5 on Friday to make sure everything goes smoothly. That often means WHL vice-president of hockey Richard Doerksen will be on hand to make sure everyone plays nice.

Coming under the ownership of the Priestner family before the start of the 2013-14 campaign, the Blades have pretty much always carried the image of being the good guys like Bret “the Hitman” Hart.

The Blades celebrate their win on Wednesday night.

In a weird twist, they were the bad guys like Roman Reigns for a one-night aberration, and it resulted in them getting a win to keep their season alive.

When the dust settled, it felt like everything that happened on Wednesday night was hollow until news came out that Lind was released from hospital. That was the true victory on the night.

If you have any comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them to stankssports@gmail.com.

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Sweet homecoming for Molleken

Lorne Molleken (centre) mans the Vancouver Giants bench.

    Lorne Molleken emerged from the Vancouver Giants dressing room and had to immediately start hugging SaskTel Centre staffers who saw him.

    It was pretty easy to see the 59-year-old Regina product, who is the Giants head coach, spent 14 seasons in the Bridge City with the Saskatoon Blades as either the team’s head coach, general manager or holding both titles. Besides meeting building staffers after the Giants 5-4 overtime victory on Sunday over the host Blades, Molleken had a large number of family and friends waiting to see him including former Blades owner Jack Brodsky. Brodsky was waiting for his long-time pal outside the Giants dressing room in a golf shirt and jeans as opposed to the suit and tie he usually wore to games as the top boss of “the Bridge City Bunch.”

    Molleken admitted it was different being on the visitor’s bench at the SaskTel Centre, but he said he had been around so long a familiar feeling would come back no matter where he was in the building noting there was a time the current visitor’s bench was the Blades bench.

    “For a long time, we used this dressing room as our home dressing room back in the early 90s,” said Molleken, who is the Blades all-time career leader in coaching victories at 539 and winning percentage at .591. “This city has always treated myself and our family extremely well, especially the Brodsky family that I worked for, for a long, long time.

    “To sort of comeback and walk through the doors of this building, it is special, because I’ve got lots of great memories here with this rink.”

    The veteran bench boss was with the Blades during two stints from 1991-95 and 2004-2014. For most of the second stint, Molleken was both the club’s head coach and general manager, but he gave up the head coaching role following the 2012-13 campaign, when the Blades hosted the Memorial Cup.
    During the 2013 off-season, the team was sold by the Brodsky family to the Priestner family, and Molleken stayed on for one last campaign before mutually parting ways with the new ownership group, who wanted to go in another direction with management and coaching.

    After a year out of the major junior ranks, Molleken became the head coach of the Giants this past off-season. While he arrived at the SaskTel Centre with a different team, Molleken said being in the Blades long-time home brought back a lot of good memories of the quality players and people he coached.

    The list of players he worked with included the likes of Norm Maracle, Rhett Warrener, David Struch, the late Wade Belak, Frank Banham and Andy MacIntyre in his first stint to Devin Setoguchi, Derek Hulak, Braden Holtby, Connor Cox, Darren Dietz and Nelson Nogier in his second stint. That list of names could obviously be much more lengthy.

The scrum occurs in front of the Giants net.

    “I look back and I look up in the rafters and teams that I’ve coached, we have some banners up there,” said Molleken, who guided the Blades to Game 7 setbacks in the 1992 and 1994 WHL championship finals. “I look back, and I had a chance to visit Daryl Lubiniecki before the game. He was a great general manager here (during Molleken’s stint in the 1990s).

    “He provided us with a lot of real character hard working players. That is the way our team played here for a lot of years, and it was very successful.”

    Molleken admitted the big pain from those years was the fact the Blades never won the league title and the Memorial Cup. His second stint guiding the team was littered with first and second round playoff exits.

    While the big trophies were never won, those looking in from an objective standpoint would have to conclude Molleken put in a true and honest effort to build a team in Saskatoon that went all the way. He knows that in the world of sports ultimate victory might not be achieved, even if you put in the honest effort.

    Even knowing that, Molleken said those ultimate victories of winning a league title and a Memorial Cup, which never came, feel like those missing things.

    “For the city and the Brodsky family, it would have put the icing on the cake,” said Molleken. “Winning in this league is very difficult.

    “The disappointing part was when we had some teams that we thought that we could be real successful with, (and) we didn’t have any success in the playoffs. That is the disappointing part when I look back, and I know how disappointed our fans were also.”

    On Sunday, Molleken’s current team and former team battled in a back-and-forth contest, where each side carried play for lengthy stretches before 3,506 spectators. At the 1:50 mark of overtime, Giants left-winger Jakob Stukel potted the winning goal on a beauty of an individual effort.

    Carter Popoff, Matt Barberis, Dakota Odgers and Ty Ronning netted singles for the Giants in regulation. Lukas MacKenzie, Jake Kustra, Cameron Hebig and Ryan Graham replied with singles for the Blades. MacKenzie and Kustra potted their first career WHL goals, and Graham scored the equalizer that sent the contest to overtime with 20.8 seconds to play in the third.

    Cody Porter made 39 stops to earn the win in goal for the Giants, while Brock Hamm turned away 32 shots to take the overtime setback for the Blades (1-0-3).

    The Giants were 1-for-4 with the power play, while the Blades were 2-for-8 with the man advantage.

    Vancouver improved to 3-0-1 with the win, and Molleken’s career regular season coaching record including time spent with the Moose Jaw Warriors and Regina Pats grew to 606-391-73. His win total is the second highest in WHL history trailing only the 742 victories put up by Ken Hodge, who guided the original Edmonton Oil Kings/Portland Winterhawks franchise.

The Giants celebrate their OT winning goal against the Blades.

    During his career, Molleken developed a reputation for being one of the classiest persons in the league, who always gave a solid and accurate post-game interview win or lose that often recognized that fact two teams were out there trying to win a game. That characteristic was on display again following Sunday’s clash between the Giants and Blades.

    “It was an exciting afternoon, obviously,” said Molleken, who was given a video tribute by the Blades early in the contest. “We win the hockey game, but more so, I thought that our guys played pretty well five on five.

    “We took some penalties tonight that hurt us, (but) give Saskatoon a lot of credit. They are team that kept battling and battling and battling. We were fortunate to find a way to win a hockey game.”

    If you have any comments you want to pass along about this blog post, feel free to email them to stankssports@gmail.com.